Class #1339

Upper Body Mat

55 min - Class
229 likes

Description

Meredith Rogers teaches a Mat workout that emphasizes arm work by using light hand weights. She starts with standing arm exercises and continues with Mat exercises incorporating the weights.This class is great for those who want to add variety to their Mat routine, as well as extra arm and abdominal resistance into their workout.
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights

About This Video

Jan 11, 2014
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Transcript

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So today we're going to work with some two pound weights and do some mat work. So let's start with that idea. Just let your weights hang to your sides and look down and make sure your feet are organized so that they're parallel to each other. And then lift your spine. So we're going to let the body lean forward and we're going to press the weights back and opposition. And just notice if you shift from side to side over your feet and then lift yourself back up just like you're swaying in the brace and allow the arms to relax at your sides. And again, lift up through the middle of your body, reach back with your arms, lift up through the top of your head and then reach back to center again until you just feel that we are coming just forward of our center line and we're guiding the weights behind us and that'll talk to our upper back, I hope, I'm sure, and stand two more times like that. Exhale, reach back and lean forward lifting up through the sternum and then coming back one more time.

Maybe just using the way to counter balance that forward lean. And then center yourself over your feet. Allow the palms of the hands to face you. Just let the weights rest in your hands. I don't want you to hold them with grippy fists. And then from there, round down, if your back feels especially tight or sensitive, right this minute, it's a good idea to bend the knees.

If not, we're just heading into a standing roll down, feeling the shoulders away from the years. Inhale at the bottom, and then exhale, lift up. Let the wheats be heavy. So you're working against that weighted resistance rolling through your spine and standing all the way up. Again. Inhale. So allow, they had to reach for a draw in and out through the center. So as the weights pull you down, why don't you to imagine almost as though you're trying not to let the weights pull you down. There's that much lift in your middle. Pause at the bottom.

Let the neck relax. Completely. Inhale, exhale to curl yourself back. One more time in here and exhale. So just checking in with your own body, checking in with the fluidity, the mobility of your spine, Huh? Yourself if you're leaning back at all, and if you are trying to keep the hips just over the feet, pausing at the bottom, taking a breath. Exhale, we lift the body Baca and then standing all the way up tall. Take the right arm, turn it on, turn the palm up, reach up with the right arm and let the left way just drift down the side of your body, taking you into a lateral flection and then start bringing the arm back. Attach the arm to the side of your body. Lower that arm down.

Rotate it back to face. You turn the other arm around. Reach up with the arm, dropping the shoulder down and reached the weight into the air and then up and over as you side. Bend The Opposite Direction. Let the arms start first and then bring the arm back down and turn it back to face you. One more time. Arm Up on the right. You don't have weights at home. You could use water bottles or soup cans. Let the pelvis drift over even further than you did the first time.

Let the arm start the movement, Huh? And take the arm back down to your side. Turn it back to face you opposite arm lift set and may reach first up. Then over side bending, allowing the pelvis to drift off to the opposite side. Lift your arm, lift your waist, lower your right arms. Lift your heels just a little bit and swivel them together. Toes apart. Heels. Together we're going to take the arms forward and going into just that [inaudible] stance with our feet and arms down. Inhale the arms reach up. Want us to tighten the legs? Imagine a zipper coming through the heels through the inseams of the legs all the way through the waistline and up to the center of the chest.

So we tighten up our middles. Reach Open and press reach open and press reach open and get longer. As you press one more reach open, get longer as you press. We're going to take it to the side now out. Take forward and then lift tall.

Lifting the sternum through the arms as the arms press down, forward and down. Turn in, reach out, take it forward and press, turn in, reach out, take it forward and press for more like this out. And yeah, out and down. Two more. Getting longer and taller as we work our weights and create an opposition on all directions with your arms last time out, forward and down. Turn the palms to face me.

Raise your arms up in front of you, bend your elbows. And now we take the arms out to the sides and back as you're going wide to your sides, just to assess that your spine is not shifting forward. So we're looking for good, strong upper back work. In addition, make sure that you're not thrusting your ribs forward so it's just movement at the shoulder joint here and last for like this and three and two and one the arms here. And then just reach out and then and reach out. You don't have to really squeeze in the biceps to make a two pound weight.

Feel like a hard by sub contraction, but you'll feel your shoulders working for sure. Pulling in and then East centric. Lee lengthen out through the arms and bend. Still tightening the legs, right still zipping up through the middle four and reach and three and reach and two and reach out one. Take the arms down. I'm going to turn this way. You guys can just keep facing exactly as you are. We're going to do a little footwork. They're going to take the arms forward.

Sit back into your heels. As you stand up, press your weights back in. He'll take the body forward on the diagonal. Sit deeply into the heels, press up and push back. Inhale, we bent XL less. Try to lift your toes off the mat a little if it's comfortable for you, just to prove to yourself that you truly are connecting to the back of the leg. Truly are keeping the weight into the heel. Two more reaching down and lifting up and reaching down and lifting up.

And now we take the heels together. This time with the arms. Instead of going straight forward, I'm going to go out into a v shape. So we're going to bend, sit back the shape with the arms and then press to the size of the body as you lift tall in how? Reach back and zip up. And as you come up, make sure that every time you're lifting all the way back to an erect position and press to the thighs as your arms come to earth has. I want you to actively push your weights into them from your opera back and then we'll just do four and back theory and back to continue that sit back, lift up action one an swivel the heels back to parallel.

Bend your knees, lean forward and just let your weights dangle in front of you. We're going to bring the elbows back and down, so just maintaining that squat position for awhile. Elbows pull back and they push forward. We pull back. Nice and push forward and five, go a little lower into your seated position for lift through the chest and three and two and one. Push the arms down. Stand up all the way.

Take your left foot in front and weight the front leg, bringing your right like very lightly on the ground behind you. Maybe not even talking the toes under gonna. Bend the knee, the front knee going to reach the arms out straight. You're going to stand up over that leg, lifting the back leg off the floor, and then bend. And let's just do two more like that. And Bend. If this doesn't suit you, reaching up is go back into that double arm row. Stand up, take the opposite behind you. So we bend the front knee, we weight that front leg, arms reach out in front, and then we press down, lift through the back leg and bend, press down, lift through the back leg. And then last time, let's do the back leg and just sand up from there.

We're going to take it down to the mat now. So oftentimes with the weights in your hands, it'll help you if you have a challenge manipulating your spine. Sometimes, sometimes not. We'll see how we go today, but let the weights just rest on your shins. Then I want you to feel a sense of reaching the weights forward and down to pull the spine upright and then we're going to inhale. We're going to curl the spine there.

First is leave the weights right as they are, so they're going to hold you there. They, you can't really go farther than you can move your spine. Then lift the weights up, then curl the spine down so you're looking for your lower back to come down into the mat. Nicely done. Inhale to pause. Exhale to curl yourself forward. Draw in deep weights, come to the shins again and then we just pull through the arms and lift the spy. Not Inhale, exhale, we're curling away, drawing back. Allow the arms to float. Curl back, pause in here.

Exhale Curleigh nice weights come to the shins and we list the back. Now if the weights start to feel, let's go again, curl too heavy for you. You just glide them over the top of the knees. You could glide them down the front of your legs, so that's a choice. You can also put them down on the floor.

Everything we're doing from now on can be done with or without. These weights in your hands. Lift up one more time. We're curling or going down. We're going to pass. We're going to inhale. Raise the arms up. Nice Marina. Hold that and down. Inhale, raise the arms at the belly pins itself to the floor. Just one more time. Raise the arms up.

Let the arms come down. Take a breath, roll up all the way. Respite weight over the middle of your shins and lift your spine. Taking it into a little rotation. Here's how we're going to do it. We are going to keep the weights on the knees so we curl the spine first and then we begin to roll the spine down. Weights just resting on the thighs. Lifts the arm closest to me. Rotate the palm up and reach back with that weight.

Look at it. Come back and set that weight down on your thigh. Lift the opposite arm. Turn it up, reach back and look at it. Bring it back. Place it down one more time. Turn it, reach back, look back, bring it back. Place it down inside. Arm, reach back, bring it back, place it down, or roll up all the way. Lifting the arms out in front of you and then lift your arms overhead.

And from here pull the weights down and feel that your spine is lengthening upwards and then it continues to lengthen upwards. As you let the weights rests in your hands and left pull down. I want you to imagine if you will, that you're literally doing a pull up so your body is rising and then easy on the up and your body is rising and easy on the off. Last two, your body rises easy on your body. Nice rises, easy on the up. Take the weights down to the mat.

Scooch in real close to your feet, real close to your feet. Take your weights and rest them on your shins and then let your weights just slide towards your body. So they'll go on the outsides of the legs as you with control. Lower yourself down into the floor. Nice. Keep the weights in your hands, but just rest the hands. Palms down on the floor, feet parallel to one another. Setting up for the pelvic curl. So inhale, as you exhale, I want you to flatten your spine.

I want you to feel as you're rolling your spine up, that you're trying to roll the weights away from you. It's not really a reality. They'll probably stay really still, but there is an exhale to go down and energy created. With that rolling forward action that will enable you to keep your shoulder blades well down away from your here is tailbone down. Inhale, exhale. We roll the spine up, pressing down and forward on the weights. Inhale, lifting the pelvis up to the top and exhale undulating through the spine.

The chest drops, the arms are very long, they're very straight. They can push it down and they also reach forward all the time. Inhale, we'll do two more. Exhale, feel the back flatten. Feel the backsides of the legs. Engage. Pick the pelvis up nice and high. Hold on the inhale and exhale to roll down. Yeah, work is specially to around the lower spinal area.

Drop the pelvis all the way down. Last two times. Flattening the spine, pressing the weights out in front of you, and also pressing the weights down into the floor. Pause as you inhale at the top, and exhale, peel the spine down. So we're going to do a little balance slash stability work at the top here and here's how it's going to go. Inhale, exhale to find your lift. Now holding your lift. We're going to pick the left leg and the right arm up the arms is going to come just over the shoulders. Place the arm in the leg down, same side, right arm, left leg lift. So as you go down towards the floor, it's just kind of a hover down or I light touch left and reach.

Lift, feeling supporting, like be so powerful. Lift and reach. Allow that foot to come all the way to the mat, both arms down. This moment we're going to roll ourselves down, just finding only to the lower back, so I don't want you to scoop. Create a very hollow and round, lower spine and then roll yourself back up all the way from the top. We press the weights into the floor. We're going to lift the right lay and the left arm, the right arm in the left leg. Stay on the ground, working to anchor the body and space. Inhale, lift and exhale down. Notice it.

The weight goes directly up over the shoulder. Instead of out to the side, we have two to go. Lift and down and lift. Nice and place it all the way down. Take your arms with your turn your weights up in your hands and slide your arms so that they rest in a t position on the floor. Then feel the stretch that's different through the chest as we then roll our spine down all the way into the mat. Keep the arms here.

If it's too intense for your shoulders, just roll the weights away from you. For now. Lift one leg, stabilize, lift the other leg. Hold the legs together and inhale. Bring both knees towards me. Let the weight assist you in keeping that arm and shoulder heavy. Exhale, pull back through the center of your body. Inhale, we reach over and exhale. We pull back to center again towards me breathing and drawing back away from the knees with the abdomen and pulling back and in here and exhale. We're going to do this one more time. Breathe in to go across.

Breathe out to pull center. Breathe in to go the opposite direction. Breathe out to pull center. This time as we go towards me with the legs, I want you to lift the same side arm, so I'm going to my left. I'm lifting my left arm, reaching across my body and then open and now my knees are going to the right, my right arms, lifting up and reaching across my body to the left and then open. We'll do that two more times through. Reach to the left, left arm less, and then open through the chest as the knees come back through. Center. Reach to the right, right arm lifts and back to center.

Last time on either side, reaching across and opening back up and reaching across and opening back up. T stay here however the arms reach the arms over your head. Look after your shoulders there. Inhale, lift your arms head and your weights, press the weights forward, reaching out in front of you. Inhale, allow the arms to start lifting and then bring the body back. Keep the arms just off the floor. Exhale as we lift the arms, the head in the chest. Reach forward, Paas, shoulders down, marina, and reach up and down. So what you could do is encourage yourself as you press the weights forward to press the shoulders down away from the ears. Inhale, arms up, belly button down and down. One more. We're going to hold at the top.

We're going to lift up. We're going to stay lifted in to take the chose away. Tip the floor and pullback. So I say tip the floor and we're going to do it again, but just be clear that if you can't tip the floor, keep lifting your spine. If you can't tip the floor without low back pain, you should just go where you can. You also have the options of putting your weights down on the ground and just pressing them away from you. Let's do that three more times.

Reach analyst and reach and lift and reach and left and hold and arms up over the shoulders. Not overhead, just over the shoulders for now. Again, we're going to curl the head and chest up. Press the weights forward. Take the leg that's closest to me and reach the arm that's furthest away from me across. Nope. Nope. I can't figure it out. Hang on a second. Take the leg that's closest to me down onto the floor and the arm that's closest to me. Oh, away from that leg. Yeah. There we go. And then unwind. Sorry. A little confusion there. Our leg furthest away from me. Same side, arm reaches across and center, [inaudible] and then same side, leg and arm, but their arm and the leg are going in different directions and reach across and center and reach across and center. Let's do one more to each side before we get way too confused or I go way to confuse across fine center, hold center. Place your arms down. Place one foot down.

Place the other foot down. Let your head and chest come down. Slide your legs out along the Mat. Take your arms up over your shoulders and turn them. So your palm face one another. Breathe in as you lift up. Nope, I lied. I want palm facing forward. I'm going to change my mind. It seems all day long.

So bear with me. So come just to your size with your weights and now curl yourself forward and Nice Dad Rolling up. Signed your round shape. Yup, Yup. And then bend your elbows into a row and lift your back to straight pressure. Arms out in front of you as you curl your back backwards. And then roll yourself down. Roll yourself down.

The arms are just going to rest over the shoulders here. We're going to lift the head and chest. Now create a curvature through your spine. As you lift yourself up, pause there, bend your arms, lift your spine through your arms, press your arms forward and peel away. Allowing the waist to just rest heavily in the hands. Arms over the shoulders. Inhale, head and chest. Two more. Oh wait to the size XO, curling forward, signed it.

And then bend and lift and reach forward and reach away. Arms just over the shoulders. Inhale, head and chest up. Exhale, curl the spine all the way forward. Let's bend over and just placed the weights down at our feet and give our arms of Britain break for a minute. Yeah, or we get all the weights. What do you think? How are you going? Marina? Want to hold the weights? Okay, we're going to hold the weights. You guys at home, do what you want.

So we're going to take the weights out front. Just let the hands rest together. So inhale here. We're going to twist towards me. Take that arm. That's this, this arm, and reach back. What does that mean and center. So what I'm just said with what not very well twist away was that the direction that you're twisting, that arm goes back, it comes to the weight in front of you. And we come to center, we lift and twist. Rotational arm reaches back.

You get a little more, bring the weight back and find center and lift and twist. Keep the shoulders down, reach open, pull back and find center. One more time. We'll reach across. Reach back center and home. Last time to the opposite side. Reach back, center at home. Now reach down, set your weights and you guys might be tapping in me.

I'm going to give us a break. Yeah, I'm going to give us a break. So just let the weights rest there. Scoot yourself back a little bit so that the weights are just in front of your feet. Literally put the weights against your feet. Okay. Yup. Just like that. So you can just, you can just feel the edges of the weights with your feet.

Take the arms forward. Should it feel pretty light now? Yeah. And now as you exhale, take your head forward and just start rolling down. Now you could imagine on probably that you still had the weights in your arms and what it might feel like to have that additional pull forward. Breathe in hold and then roll yourself up. Stacking the spine. Deb, I'm going to suggest that you don't go all the way down between your arms with your head, but just keep your head a little bit above your arms.

So let the head go down, but then feel like more flection coming from the trunk. I like it more. I like it a lot more. Holding. Inhale and then exhale as we roll out. Now think about pushing the weights away from you with your legs as you're lifting your spine. Again, inhale, exhale. We take it forward. This time I want you to place your hands, your legs.

I want you to use your arms to build your spine into a straight line. So lifting the chest, they, yeah, that where your arms go is going to be in decretive of how tight or or flexible your spine is. Let your arms come up, bend your elbows, turn your elbows down and your hands up. We're going to stretch the arms and the spine overhead. We're going to dive back down and we're going to roll up. Hmm. Is that too confusing? I'll talk to you. I'll talk you through it again.

So we roll down. First we find our legs using your arms, build your spine on the diagonal, lifting up through the chest, let go, float the arms, bend the elbows, pull back like you still have leads. Rotate the elbows down, reach the arms overhead and feel the entire spine growing with you and then die back down and articulate your spine out. Let's do that one more time. Kind of Nice that I think. Anyway, roll down. Hands on the thighs. Lift, lift, lift, float the arms nice and easy.

Then rotate the elbows down. Stay there. Keep that goalpost position, but just go straight back with the goalposts. One straight back with the goalposts guiding the elbows forward and three nice and two and one and now reach the spine. Reach the arms all the way up. Rotate the FEMSA face, the back of the room and five little presses from there, one and two and three and four and five. We're going to take it all the way forward.

Can you reach and find your weights with your hands? Bring them with you as you roll up. I'm just sliding mine along the Mat. Again, not necessary to have the weights, but I think that they'll give us some, um, some feedback in our saw, which is where we're going now. So sitting tall, take your arms out to your sides, twist towards my me, and then turn that back hand back in the front, arm forward and reach into your saw. Now what I'm suggesting is with the weights, we can feel the pull apart. We can feel that opposite positional center energy, perhaps more than we could without the weights in hands. Reach out, length in and reach back. Arm reaches towards the floor, top arm reaches out and forward. We sit up and we find center. And Inhale, lift and twist and exhale, dive and inhale, reach out. And Xcel find center. And Inhale, lift and twist and exhale dies.

And now feel the oppositional gravitational pull of the weights as you sit up and center. Okay, so now we're going to do the same thing, but we're going to rest the weights at our feet. Now you've created that energy. I, I know you know how to create that energy in your body. Okay, so roll up now. So the, so what we have against our feet as we have a little feedback to feel if we're shifting or not shifting. So we're going to do three more sauce. So twist, feel that there's absolutely no movement against the weight with the feet, and then reach up and center and twist a little quicker now and a eyes and reach up and center and twist and, and reach and center and twist and die. And the length of who I just caught, my folk coming away from my weight and lift and center last time and I, and list and center, lower your arms to the mat and bend your knees, place your hands behind you and push the floor away from you so that your back is very long. We're going to pick the pelvis up, we're going to roll through the spine, reach the knees out over the feet and come into an upside and come into a bridge position. Hold there and then roll yourself back down. But not all the way to the ground. So we're just going to hover off the mat, pressing the chest forward all the time. Push the floor away from you more marina. That's it. Curl up.

Send the knees out over the feet. Lift up nice and tall through the hips and then curl yourself back down. Rolling back. Not all the way back between the ams but slightly in front of the arms with the pelvis into a neutral position. One more time. Roll Up. We're is looking for a little hip flexor opening. Reach up.

Press up through the backs of your legs. Stand on both feet. Roll back down. Stay round, stay round. Bend your arms and straight. Here's a little more arm work for you. Marina and straight are on an arm challenge today. Hope you're enjoying it.

Good. Drawing Down with the center of your body. Last five and four and three. Still focusing on keeping the shoulders away from the ears. Two more. Last one. Sit down, sit up together. Reach for your weights. Take a weight on each ankle and draw and close for rolling like a ball.

So we just use the weights again and again. They might change the gravity. So they might make the exercise feel slightly different. That's always okay. We're going to rock back in here and roll. Oh, makes it a little easier to come up. That's fun. And then rock back a little harder to go back though, right? Stay and lift. So the challenge, right as we use the weights to make it easier in theory to lift is to do it with control and inhale back legs together.

Tight and lift. We'll do two more. Inhale back, try to feel that you're not kicking your feet into your hands. One more time. Inhale back, exhale forward. Stay here. Reach your weights away from you. And now just slowly start to position your body down into the ground.

Lift your legs so that they are parallel to your mat. And we're going to take the arms up and the legs out. Not overhead. You could go overhead certainly, but I'm just suggesting up of maybe just forehead level and then push towards your hips and reach out in here and pull. So the forest at with which you're pushing down on the weights. I want you to try and find in your legs as well.

So imagine that you've got weights on your knees that you're pulling towards your body. Last three and reach last two and reach last time and reach. Hold here. Place your head down. Let your head relax, bring your knees. Just let your knees relax into your chest for a moment. We're going to take the weak feet away from us. We're going to lift the arms up. We're going to see if we going to roll ourselves up to balance. [inaudible].

Nice. So here comes to single leg stretch. We take it down with control, with control, so reaching the weights. So good for reaching the weights, reaching the weights, nice step. And then from there the right leg goes forward. Weights. Just pull forward all the time. Left leg forward, right leg forward, left leg, forward, right leg forward. Last too.

One more. Do you guys know what's coming? You must. Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle, bicycle. We're going to bicycle our way up hill. Here we go. Start lifting your body by sickle. It up. Yes. Continue the bicycle and bicycle down. Bicycle, bicycle. Go Two more times. Control. Reaching forward. Forward, forward, forward, forward, and Dan.

Yeah. Down. Here's I last one. Forward. Forward, forward, forward and down. Down, down, down, knees into the chest. Give me a hug like your Elvis be y. Look the weights just rest over your knees. Take your head and turn it towards your right shoulder. Looking over your right shoulder into the ground underneath your back. Come back through center. Take your head and look over your left shoulder. Getting down into the ground. Your left shoulder.

Come back to the center. Take your arms up over your shoulders. Curl your head and chest up. The arms are just going to reach over the top, so the knees, we're going to take the keep the knee closest to me, bent opposite leg straight and take both weights over so you take your arms or your knee through the hole in your arms. Center over the knees and switch and center over the knees and switch and center over the knees and switch. Good. You don't have to separate your weights, you just have to come across with your body so that would the ends of the weights are being held together and across. Center. Cross Center, Cross Center, Cross Center. One more cross center, Cross Center. Hold that. Lower your arms, lower your head, keep the weights in your hands.

Created down and forward energy. Stretch your legs forward. Breathe into lift your legs up and breathe out. To Curl your way over. Flex your feet. Separate your feet if you can without changing the positioning of your spine. Lower your legs a little and then roll through your spine.

As your spine comes into the mat, I want you to reach your legs in the direction that your spine is traveling and reach your feet and your neck in the opposite direction. As the pelvis comes down, we'll point we'll bring the legs together and down, down and together and lift them. XL role ourselves over pausing as the legs come parallel to the floor. Flex the feet, separate the feet and lower and then reaching through the heels and reaching through the arms and guiding ourselves down. Point, bring the legs down and together. Inhale two more times. Push into the weights.

Flex separate and a rule the spine down. Point the feet circle to attach. Last time. Inhale, exhale to rollover. [inaudible] flex. Separate and and rule yourself all the way down. Circle the legs to touch. Bend the knees. Place the feet down on the floor, and then open them up.

Why drop both knees over to one side. You might have to just move your weights in your arms out of your way and then back to the center. Don't reach across the opposite direction and back to center. One more time. Reaching across and back to center and just opening up through the hips and back to center. So we're going to turn to the side. Turn towards me. Just let your weights rest in front of you.

Position Yourself so that your forum is underneath your shoulder. [inaudible] palm down feet are stacked the opposite arm. Let's just reach it up in the air and then pull the ribs up away from the floor. That action of pulling the ribs up is where we're gonna lift. From there. We're just going to push down and just hover the hips. Push. What do I, what are we pushing down? The arm and the knees. Just lift, floating the hips up, feeling that whole bottom side, waist working, and then come down. So Marina, when you lift, just bring the ribs back just a little bit. And then when we go down, we're not going to sag. We're still pushing the floor away from us all the time.

We're going gonna lift up. When you get a hold there, take your top arm and bend your waist. As you reach overhead, come back to a straight line. And now don't lose that shoulder. Don't lose that waste. As you come down and again, lifts and then reach through the bottom sideways. Take the arm overhead, come back and down and last to lift. Pressing the forearm down. Press the form down more as you reach over into your arch.

Come back and a last one here. Try not to sink when you come down to the ground. So even when you're resting on the floor, you're working your up, you reach over, you come back, you lower down. We're going to come up onto the knees and bring our arms out to our sides. So I want us to go away from the side that we were just working, meaning all of us will go to the ocean. We were working the right side or whatever side you're working.

We're just going to reach over and stretch and then when meal backup and reach over and same side. Yeah. Good. I'm just gonna just play around with it today. Challenge our brains a little. Reach over. Same Psi and back. One more. Reach over the same side and back. Okay, so now go to the opposite side. Lift that knee, place your hand down. I'm going to keep the where the sick the hand and press it back behind the head.

Kick that leg out straight and now kick it towards me and away from me and towards me and just using, just like we were doing when we were floating off the floor, that bottom side waist for control last two times and back last one time and back. Now we're going to bend the knee back there. We're going to bicycle it forward and pull then the knee behind you, bicycle it forward and pull one more bend by sickle forward and pull. We're going the other way. We're going to go forward, Ben, reach back. Forward Bend, reach back, forward bend, reach back, listen up. We're going to turn yourself towards the floor.

Spiral the knee that you're arresting on so it's parallel and widen your arms very wide on your mat, wider than your mat. So now the leg is lifted. Your parallel to your mat. We're going to bend the elbows, it's going to be a forward and back. Push you guys. So we're going to go down towards the floor, reach the chest into the ground, lift that back leg nice and high and push back up. Forward. The chest reaches down into the floor, the back leg lifts and press Baca and for the back leg lifts and press up last to widening the elbows and left last one lifting.

Here's our transition. So we start to turn the same side hand back, turn the knee back, just let it slide on the mat and then we're going to drop that knee. Drop the knee that was in the air and we're going to sit back on it. Yeah, so you're sitting into the hip that you've stretched. All right. Sorry. Excuse me. Sitting into the hip that you've worked and then always here, you know, feel free to play it. Play around with the positioning of your own body. Rolling.

Maybe sinking a little deeper into the stretch. Maybe changing the position of your arms a little bit. Just looking for more and then roll towards the hip. Roll towards the hip and turn this so you should be facing me. Now we're on the opposite arm. I'll be a little more clear.

This. Yeah, got it. Okay. Okay, so lifting out the ribs, there's a straight line between ribs and pelvis. Just going to push into the feet and into the ironman lift. So we just did that two times before we made the side bend. And then keep lifting off the floor as your pelvis drops down. And again, drawing in on that lower waist. Float to three and arrest Deb.

I'm gonna make a really fussy correction. You're doing this with your head. Just reach for Marina's head with your head and lift again. Perfect. Now you're going to reach up through your bottom waist. Take Your Tom top arm over your head. Come back to a straight line and lower the pelvis without sinking in the shoulders and lift up and reach over and come back and lower the pelvis without sinking the shoulders.

Nice, solid. Beautiful. Last time. Here we go. Reach up, reach over, come back, lower the pelvis, reach around in front of you. Help yourself up onto your knees. Okay, so your bottom waist, the one that where you were just lifting off the mat as the one we're stretching. So arms up and I go away from the waist. You were just working to stretch and back up and again. Oh, away from the waste. You are just working to stretch and backup. Last one. Oh away. And now when we go to work the other hip, we're going to go the other direction. Put your hand down, lift your knee yet, say hand behind your head. Stretch your leg out, flex your foot and slide the leg forward and kick back.

And just watch it. The body isn't changing as the leg moves through space and three and back and four and back. One more. And then we did three bicycles. So we took the leg back, we bent it way back there and then kick it forward and keep it high and space as you bring it back. Bend and kick forward one more back. Then watch it. The back doesn't bend too much and then bend the knee, reach back and slide a straight leg forward. Bend the knee, reach back and slide a straight leg forward. Bend the knee, reach back and slide a straight leg forward. Take your leg back to your side. So here's how we go. We're going hand. Yep.

Rotate your knee. You can put your other leg down and lifted it. I mean, that's all fine. What super wide arms though. I'm not able to go as wide as I want you to go. I want you to go outside of your mat. That leg one that's straight as lifting up. We're going to bend, go forward to touch the mat with the chest and then push back over the knee and bend and then push back. So the leg lifts, you're in back accents in there and reach up and [inaudible] [inaudible] and list and reach up. Say there.

So you're going to come back in my direction. We're going to rotate the knee again. Gonna lift the arm that's closest to me. There we are. And now this knee is going to drop. It's going to come down the arm that's free in a reach overhead as we sit into the hip. You got it, you got it.

Then just take a minute there to, to breathe, to open up that side of your body, to open up your hip, come around through this center and then grab your weights and come onto your stomach. Okay. So we're going to do a little bit of um, prone back extension and then we're going to do a little bit of kneeling back extension. So what I want you to do for now is just take your weights out and they're going to be a little wider than your shoulders. Just rest the heels of your hands on them. Srs the heel.

So let the fingers unwind. Yep. And then take your wrists so that, what a, okay, look here. I'm going to ask if I'm going to want us to roll. Okay. So put, put your hands in a place that will be available to you and then pressing the abdominal pelvis towards the mat, engaging through the backsides of the legs to support. Want you to draw your arm bones back. The weights will start to roll towards you and then allow your back to lift and just continue. You can go as high or as low as you want, but it's a backward drawing of the arms that are rolling the weights and then just push the weights away from you. Push the weights away from you by moving your spine, not by lifting your arms into your ears. Let's do that again. The head lifts, the abdominals are supporting the spine, the legs are supporting the spine, and then we just roll a roller and then roll the weights away. And again, just a couple more.

I'm going to lifter. I'm going to feel the spine. As it reaches up, it's going forward. Your spine is going forward as your arms are pulling back. That's the energy I want you to create or I would like for you to think about creating if you're so inclined. Last two arm bone slide back. Spine reaches forward before it lifts up and reaches forward just as much as the arms are pulling back and then reach out. Last one. Don't forget to keep your legs strong here. Gonna come up again.

I want you to start to roll the weights down so you're just off your breastbone. So your ribs are fully on Mat. Well, the front sides of the ribs are going to pick the legs up there and bring the heels together. It is keeping almost using the weights to hold you up here. We just do little leg beats here. So touch, touch, touch, touch, slide your arms back a little bit. Marina. That's it right there. And then squeeze straight legs together. Yup. Yup, Yup, Yup, Yup, Yup. Yeah.

And then lower the legs down. So now take your weights. They're going to go out into a t shape like so feel first that you're rolling your thumbs up. Yup. So you can actually pick them up and then lift your arms off the floor. And as your arms lift off the floor, just hover the chest. Yeah, hold it just there. Now lift the thumb side of the hand. Okay. Uh Huh. And uh, and we're rolling the pinky fingers forward to one.

Rest your hands on the mat and lower your forehead down. We'll do that again. So we'll start by just rolling the thumb side of the hand up so that the hand, the weights are upright. Lift the chest a little less. The arms, you don't have to lift very high. Look down at your mat. And then lift arms two, three, four, five. Lower the arms to the ground and lower the forehead.

One more time. Assessed that the thumb space up, shoulder blades, dry down abdominals are in the arms. Just hover off the mat and now it's just arms only. Arms, arms, three, two, one. Lower your arms down. Send your weights out in front of you and just let them rest on the mat in front of you. Placed your forearms underneath your next year. Body your forearms. Yep. Push off your forums onto your knees, squeeze your knees a little bit closer underneath you and then reach back all the way so you're sitting down onto your feet. And then once you're there, you can do whatever you want with your arms. If it feels good for you to have him out straight.

That's what I personally am liking at the moment. But another nice thing to do is to take your hands around behind you and hold onto your feet and use your arms to pull your pelvis closer to your feet. And that might give you a stretch. Oh, very good stretch. And then let your arms rest next to you or just in front of your knees and say, push yourself up and then roll yourself up, bringing yourself through a rounded shape. And again, back up onto the knees. And then we'll finish on our knees today. Are you guys okay on your knees? Okay.

So cause we can stand. Are we happy? Okay. Okay. So this is something that we play with all the time without weight. So we're just going to do with rates today, which is even better. How are your arms going? Are All going to have nice sore harms tomorrow? Maybe.

Hopefully. Okay. So press your weights together and then feel that there is trying to stick together as you try to pull them apart. Okay? Yep. So that's just an energy that's being created, an inward energy. Now I want you to pull the weights apart like you're pulling apart what? Taffy. Taffy. You're stretching taffy between your two ways.

Reach your arms out to your sides, hold there, rotate your arms to face upwards. Let the waist press the shoulders down, rotate the arms back, and then push like you're squeezing, said Taffy back into a bundle. And then we do it again. So we pull apart, we open, open, open, open, turn the arms up and this time lift the chest and then rotate the arms back and bend and come back. One more like that. Open out, turn and lift the chest. Turn back and lower your arms. Now all the way. So we're going to do a tricep exercise.

I want you to take the weight in this hand down so it's going to rest on the floor in a minute. The other, I'm just going to lift up. I'm going to bend over and we're gonna place that weight down and we're just gonna rest on it. And I want you to take that arm nice and close to your head and you're going to bend your elbow. And then you're going to straighten your arm press. And as you've been working to a deeper stretch and straighten and bend and straighten and to stretching the body out as the arm straightens. One more time. Straighten, lift that arm up. Pick the bottom, weight up and change side. So I've got to change hands like this.

I'm going to reach over. Let the weight set down. Reach over your head with your arm. Bend your arm, and now as you straighten your arm, I want you to feel that your waist is stretching, is that arm reaches overhead and bend and the waist is stretching. Even push the bottom weight into the floor and bend and stretch towards Deb. That's it. And Bend in. Two more reach. And then here we go. We're going to lift that arm, lifts the body, reach forward, round your spine, set your weights down at your knees just in front of your knees.

And then as you roll up, let your arms come out in front of you. Press through the heels of the hands. Open out. Now that arm should feel almost weightless, almost weightless. And then we're going to reach forward around the spine and just sitting back, hovering down off the heels, yet round more marina, Tuck your pelvis, press through the heels of your hands and open through the hips. Press the arms back, reach the chest up and forward and then reach backwards.

Just couldn't conn caving through the spine. And one more time extending the back arms reaching. Stay here, just lower your arms and then lift your right arm. Just nice and easy. Just the right. Let your hand come to your head. Lift your left arm to your side just to your side and then gently let the head come across towards the right shoulder. Be Gentle with yourself here please.

It's worth it. And then just very slowly let the left arm be heavy and allow it to drop to your side. And then as it slowly finds our sides, we just let this stretch happen. And then stay here. Just rotate the thumb to face outwards so the palm of the hand faces me and then take your hand off of your head, let your arm and you put your hand on the bottom side of your head and push it up. Yeah, just just letting the muscles totally relax opposite side.

So the opposite arm is out to the side. The left hands. Now on the head, you're going to draw the head over and then just very slowly allow that opposite on that straight arm to just start to work its way down towards your thigh, pausing at the bottom, and then allow the thumb to rotate backwards. Or just turn the palm of the hand to face me. Take your hand off your head, put it on the bottom side of your head, let your opposite arm relax, and then just push yourself up and take both arms up. Inhale, gathering energy to feel the whole spine light in and reach up. And then rotate the ponds to face the floor and push down and then grow the spine through the arms. And I'll just do that two more times. So just let the arms float up, that the whole being, your whole being, your spine, your waist, your energy, go upwards.

And then keep the energy in your body going upwards as the arms just fall back down towards the floor. And one more time, let the arms float up and then maintaining hopefully that boy and see that light filled spinal energy as we allow our arms to just rest set aside. And that my friends the end. Thank you.

Comments

1 person likes this.
i liked the class but I thought that Meredith was less clear in her cues than normally.
1 person likes this.
Thank you Meredith. I love your classes with weights!
1 person likes this.
thank you meredith. Good upper body workout
1 person likes this.
Awesome..........
1 person likes this.
Your descriptions of every nuance of the moves were wonderful, such great cuing! Loved the class!
Thank you for your comments ladies. I appreciate so much you taking time to share and give constructive and honest feedback. Happy New Year!
1 person likes this.
Thank you! Super class - just the right amount of challenge and stretch to start my day :)
1 person likes this.
Great class. Some of the volume of the video was very soft and/or inaudible. ):
Thanks gals! It's always so great to hear your feedback.
1 person likes this.
Love this clas! Great workout, thanks Meredith!
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